hagel did with the republicans and a lesson of payback in politics? >> i think it is. you know, it's loyalty. it's breaking the omerita. it's a guy who was a ten years ago considered even a leading candidate for the republican presidential nomination and went against his own president and party and even worse than that was actually right, i think, about what he said. in other words, one of the big ironies now and seeing now with the debate over hagel is if you look at the things he was saying in 2002 and 2003, a lot of it was about avoiding excess cost. the excess costs of a war that he said was unnecessary, namely iraq. here's a guy that's savvy about what he's called a bloated pentagon budget coming in at a time when the pentagon budget has to be cut so it's interesting to see whether, you know, down the line after all of this bad blood he gets credit for that. >> michael, i loved the end of your article in "the national journal." you write in washington one is forgiven many things. being right is another matter. for too many lawmakers, it would be